Sir Louis Mallet's letter in Tuesday's Times on the Conti-
nental sugar-bounties, is an admirable exposure of the nonsense talked by some pseudo-Free-traders who profess to regard interference with Free-trade in other countries,—if it happens artificially to reduce the price of some one article to English consumers,—as a real benefit to this country. If that could be so, Free-trade would cease to be a principle ; and the true patriot, instead of wishing to see all parts of the world producing what they can produce under the most advantageous conditions, would prefer, at least for his own country's sake, that every other country should give bounties on the exportation of goods which could not otherwise be advantageously produced there, in order that the one country which is not so foolish as to follow their example may receive at an artificially low price what it will half- rain the exporting nations at once to produce and to load with bounties. Of course, that can only mean that one nation would really and ultimately profit by the folly and extravagance of all its neighbours, and a more absurd doctrine could not be imagined. It is quite true, of course, that the countries giving suoh bounties will suffer much more from them than the country which gives none, but which gets its imports at an artificially low price in consequence of these bounties. But it is also true that the latter country, too, must suffer, and suffer seriously, from the disturbed and unnatural conditions under which bounty-fed commerce is carried on. Sir Louie Mallet is the genuine Free-trader, and beside him, such a blundering politician as Mr. F. Leveson Gower has on this occasion proved himself, should stand rebuked. He confounds two very different things,—a minimum of disadvan- tage and a maximum of advantage. England obtains the former by the sugar-bounties which foreign countries grant. She does not obtain, but loses the latter.
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